Sage winterwood's Arc

Chapter 26 of 29

The frostberry seeds sat in fed soil, cold and whole. Sage watered them and waited. By morning nothing had changed. She dug one up with a careful finger. The seed was hard and dry. It had not swelled. It had not split. She pressed it back and knelt on the damp floor of her greenhouse. The other seedlings around her loved this warm, wet air. But frostberries slept in cold. Warm ground would never wake them. She had climbed a mountain and carried snow for four days, and still the seeds refused to grow. They needed frozen earth. She sat back and looked at her plants. The lilac bloom needed dry, loose soil. The frostberries needed frost. The vines on the walls needed heat and rain. Each plant came from a different world. Her greenhouse gave them all the same warm, wet air. That was the whole problem, laid out plainly. She could not grow every plant on earth in one climate. She needed cold ground here and warm ground there. She needed rain in one place and sun in another. No hoe or seed could fix that. The fox nosed the door open and trotted in. Sage looked at its thick fur and had half an idea. "You can reach the snow drifts in a few days," she said. "Faster than I ever could." She fetched the small satchel she had made for it and buckled it on. "Bring back snow. Pack it tight. I will cool one corner of this house for the frostberries." The fox licked her hand and slipped out the door. She began clearing a corner, planning where the cold soil would go. But snow melts. A fox and a satchel could only buy her days, not seasons. She needed real weather, held in place. She thought of the one goddess who could bend the sky.